Basilisk: The Serpent King

Basilisk: The Serpent King (2006) is a horror-fantasy TV movie you can watch online on iFILM, directed by and co-starring Stephen Furst. The premise is clean: an ancient creature sealed underground for two thousand years gets dug up by a modern archaeology team, shipped to a Colorado university museum, and wakes up right on schedule during the next solar eclipse.

The backstory is blunt and effective — a Libyan king trapped the basilisk, a serpentine beast whose gaze turns flesh to stone, using a golden scepter during an eclipse. Archaeologist Harry McColl's expedition ignores the warnings from locals, which is, of course, exactly when the warnings stop being theoretical. Jeremy London plays McColl, and Yancy Butler shows up to help deal with the problem once it becomes undeniable.

Shot in Bulgaria on a TV budget, the film knows what it is: a creature feature with a straightforward monster, clear rules, and enough forward momentum to carry a viewer to the end. It is not trying to be more than that, and for fans of mid-2000s genre television movies, that honesty is part of the appeal. Stream Basilisk: The Serpent King (2006) online on iFILM.